


i like me better (when i'm with you)

by sightstone (symmetrophobic)



Series: you and i were fire, fireworks [1]
Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: M/M, depending on how much pain it gives me!!, might be a series!!, obligatory college au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 06:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11225565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/symmetrophobic/pseuds/sightstone
Summary: because uni's the best time for 2am chicken with beer and shittalk (and nothing else, according to junsik), no questions asked.





	i like me better (when i'm with you)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for putting up with 2.2k of self-indulgence \o/ ty ray for beta! title taken from a song of the same name by lauv.

Junsik doesn’t remember spring being this warm.

Maybe he’s just out of shape. Though anyone would probably die climbing up six storeys carrying a ton of shit - he’s fine, he scoffs, ignoring the shortness of breath as he plods on up the dusty stairwell under moth-infested orange lights.

The dorms over on this side are buzzing at this hour; exams seem miles away and everyone just wants to kick back before the rush starts. Everything looks blinding in stark lights or shadows - their college doesn’t care much about lighting for these few blocks, though Junsik’s glad for the relaxed surveillance here, to a certain extent.

The bag is so _heavy_ tonight, and it’s all Jongin’s fault, Junsik swears under his breath. Him and his stupid list of requests, and Jaewan is no better.

He swings around to the service stairwell, climbing one more floor before hefting the bag onto his shoulders to free up his arms and grabbing a rung of the white ladder.

“Bitch,” Junsik finally huffs a minute later, when he half clambers, half falls onto the roof. “I’m _never_ going on the grocery runs again.”

“You’re alive!” Someone bellows from across the roof, followed by an ineffectual _shush, you’re going to get us found out_. “Applause,” Jongin slow claps from where he’s flat on his back on a picnic mat, his stupidly long legs sticking out in different directions.

“I’m going to stab your eye with this pack of chips,” the younger boy growls from across the roof. “Why do we need _two_ six-packs of beer?”

“Because, Junsik-ah,” Jongin folds his hands placatingly across his chest, still reclining on the mat. “It’s the second week of the semester and we’re all already dying. I think the question is why _don’t_ we need two six-packs of beer.”

“Carry it yourself, then,” Junsik hisses, dumping the bag by Jongin’s face, before settling heavily on the other mat.

“We’re sorry,” the mess of fluffy jackets by Jongin’s side disentangles itself, then. “We should’ve come to help you.”

“It’s fine, Bumhyeon-hyung,” the younger boy grumbles, fanning himself with a brochure. “We’ll just get Jongin to carry his own damn beer next time. Anyway, hey,” he knees the lump on his mat. “Budge over. You’re taking up the whole mat.”

Jaewan opens one eye, looks at him, then rolls over, letting Junsik sit properly. “I hope you got the chicken.”

“No, asshole, I ate it along the way,” the other boy rolls his eyes, flopping backwards down on the mat. “Of course I got the chicken.”

“Yeah, what’s atherosclerosis, right?” Bumhyeon’s poking through the bag, now, organising things through some innate mothering instinct. Junsik doesn’t quite know what the hell atherosclerosis is, so he doesn’t respond.

“You didn’t bring a jacket?”

Junsik looks over at Jaewan. “No. Didn’t make sense, I was going to die from overheating anyway.”

“You’re going to bitch about the cold again later and I’m going to have to listen.”

“Go listen to Bumhyeon whine about his super unsecret crush on Jongin some more, then.”

Jaewan’s eyes flick upwards warily- the other two haven’t noticed, Bumhyeon smacking Jongin’s hands away when he tries to sneak some chicken before everything’s ready.

“That's mean.”

“Nah, could be a range.”

Jaewan very slowly and deliberately puts his face in his hands. “You did not just make a nerd stats joke at me.”

“It’s not stats, it’s common sense,” Junsik grins. “Go on. Quote Shakespeare at me, or something. I don’t mind.”

“Har har,” the other boy sits up, legs crossed. “I wouldn’t stoop so low.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Junsik stretches luxuriously, before sitting up too, to take a look at the food. “Are we good?”

“You’re such-…” Bumhyeon snipes at Jongin, who’s escaping the scene of the crime with a chicken tender between his teeth. “A _barbarian_. Get away from the food and don’t come back.”

“Yeah, hyung,” Jaewan eggs him on with his mouth full, having swiped a piece of chicken himself. “Tell him.”

“Anyway, the food’s ready,” Bumhyeon drags the plastic sheet with the food into the centre. “Junsik-ah, did they give you any sauce?”

“It’s in the other paper bag, under the beer,” Junsik says, scarfing a drumstick. “Thanks hyung.”

They settle in a loose circle, Jongin having to grovel a bit for forgiveness before being allowed back in, and Junsik eats absently with the white noise of Jaewan bitching about shitty project group mates and Jongin’s hyena laughter.

It’s too early in the year to have nothing to talk about, and the conversation is a mess of upset rants and serious discussions about progress on discovering good study (or sleeping) areas around campus for a solid 20 minutes or so. For example, Jongin describes (at length) how he’d offended one of Junsik’s professors by accidentally ranting about the uselessness of bioengineering while studying with the younger boy at his school. Bumhyeon complains about the girl in his tutorial group who keeps trying to lecture everyone in the class whilst heavily hinting to the professor that she’d completed all her readings during the holidays. Jaewan lets them in on a trade secret loft area in the library equipped with bean bags, perfect for skipping tutorials.

All in all, a rather quality sharing session.

The beer is broken out a lot earlier than expected ( _you’re supposed to eat chicken with beer_ , Jongin insists, scandalised, not knowing that Junsik had sneaked a can on his own already) and Bumhyeon bemoans their health as Jaewan drinks deeply.

“You’re going to choke,” Junsik warns, and Jaewan sets the can down, eyeing him as if to say _really?_

“We’re 21. You know,” Jaewan says distantly. “Don’t you ever wonder what happens next?”

“You mean, when we turn 22?”

“After we die, smartass.”

Junsik shrugs. “No. I’m eating chicken. Why should I care?”

Jaewan talks funny when he’s in one of these moods, when the alcohol mixes with the fluff in his head from all the pruney old white Literature professors. Junsik doesn’t like it, probably because he doesn’t get it, and he doesn’t like it when he doesn’t get something Jaewan does.

“Just wondering,” Jaewan eyes the piece of chicken in his hands critically. “We’re getting old, Junsik-ah.” A few feet away on the same mat, Bumhyeon lies down - Junsik can hear the crinkle of the mat when he does. “Soon we’ll be working and apartment hunting and struggling with stupid colleagues instead of stupid classmates.”

“We’ll be old no matter how old we are,” Junsik shrugs. “Pass me another beer.”

Jaewan sighs, reaching over to grab a can from under Jongin’s nose and tossing it over. “We should probably drink less.”

“Great, you can give me your share, then.”

“Har har, nice,” Jaewan snatches back the can Junsik had been halfheartedly sneaking away from him. “Who wants to live anyway, right?”

“I do,” Junsik replies flatly. “Though I suppose if you’re dead you can’t talk out of your ass, might not be such a bad thing after all.”

Talking like this sets Junsik off like nothing else - these are thoughts that never occupied Jaewan’s mind back when they were in high school, all a product of university, he swears. He has no clue why the talk of life and death irritates him so much, either.

They’re 21, they’ve barely lived, let alone enough to start talking about dying.

Jaewan seems to get the hint, and shelves it, rolling over to grab a wet towel, tossing a pack to Junsik too.

“There’s some sort of career planning fair at the quad tomorrow,” Jaewan mumbles. The other boy understands why a moment later; Bumhyeon’s somehow inched all the way over from his side of the mat to lying with his head pillowed on Jongin’s outstretched arm, the two whispering about something that’s making him smile. “We could go. There’s free food and goodie bags with stationery. We could talk with people in suits about our future like we know where we’re going.”

“Cool,” Junsik looks up at him, slightly apologetic about the outburst just now. “I finish at 1. We could meet for lunch.”

“Just let me check when my lecture’s over-…”

“You finish at 2.30 tomorrow. And you barely go for lectures anyway.”

“Well that sucks,” Jaewan groans. “And I’m trying to turn over a new leaf this semester, okay? Ugh, if my GPA gets shit on again, I’m dead.”

“You call a 4.3 getting shit on? I barely scraped a fucking 3.9, man.”

“Engineering and literature are two very different degrees,” Jaewan rolls him another can of beer. “So, free food? I hear they’re giving out a bunch of “healthy” instant food, great for mid-term mugging.”

“What’s this about free food?” Junsik cringes as Jongin and Bumhyeon finally surface from their…whatever it is, that was, uh, going on. “We’re coming, right?”

“Depends,” Jaewan says drily. “Are you?”

Junsik stifles a barking laugh into a mouthful of beer and ends up choking.

After a lot of back thumping and Bumhyeon giving Junsik some water magically produced from nowhere, they end up flat on their backs again, facing the stars, Junsik clearing his throat to get rid of the bitterness at the back of his throat.

“It’s cold,” he says hoarsely, out of nowhere. He gets a faceful of Jaewan’s jacket in about 5 seconds.

“Homeostasis,” Bumhyeon says. Once again, Junsik has no clue what the fuck he’s saying, so he keeps quiet and draws the jacket over himself. “I guess our bodies are slowing down.”

“I feel ancient,” Jongin confesses, after a lengthy pause - his words are a little thick from the alcohol and grease. “You two,” he angles his head to look at Junsik and Jaewan, the shift making the mat crinkle. “You don’t know the feeling, so don’t talk.”

Bumhyeon laughs, and Junsik remains silent.

“It’s like,” the science student eventually picks up from where Jongin had left off. “Like life hasn’t even begun, and we’re already old.”

“We’ll be old no matter how old we are,” Jaewan replies, and a familiar warmth floods Junsik’s chest, prickly but comforting at the same time. He glances over, catching the other boy’s eye, then looks away quickly, fixing his stare on a faint cluster of stars in the sky. “We’ll figure it out.”

*

They crash Jongin and Junsik’s room after that, as usual, despite Bumhyeon’s room being two floors up and Jaewan’s block about a fifteen-minute walk away.

“Seohaeng’s bringing someone over,” Bumhyeon mumbles as Junsik tosses him a sleeping bag, like he still needs an excuse to sleep here.

Jaewan’s yawning, digging through the bag of sleeping stuff he’d brought over (like he hasn’t already left enough of his shit around here), as Junsik brings down the second sleeping bag from the cupboard.

“It’s your turn for the bed tonight,” he says casually, unrolling the bag carefully beside his bed. “Don’t drool on my pillow.”

“Nah, your back’s still not recovered from that taekwondo accident you had last week,” Jaewan waves him away as he leaves for the common bathroom. “Sleeping on the floor is healthy anyway.”

Junsik weighs the pros and cons of waiting out Jongin and Bumhyeon’s weekly argument on who takes the bed (“it’s your bed! I’m fine with the floor, really-…” “Your wrists are already going to die, if you drop a test tube of weird shit on yourself one day because of that it’s going to be because you slept on the floor-…”), and shrugs, grabbing his bag and heading out. It’s not a difficult choice.

“Hey,” he announces, walking into the bathroom, and Jaewan looks up quizzically, face covered in that weird facial foam Bumhyeon always uses. “Nice look. You should keep it.”

“Harhar,” Jaewan says, voice muffled. “Do you want something, or are you here to laugh at me?”

“What if I want to laugh at you?”

“Oh, that’s great, Bae Jun-…”

“We’re okay, right?”

Jaewan blinks into the mirror, face half-washed, shitty eyesight apparent when he squints at Junsik’s reflection.

The other boy stands by one of the toilet stalls, waiting patiently for a response he knows is coming.

Jaewan finishes washing his face, donning his glasses again, now speckled with drops of water, glistening like crystals.

“Yeah,” he says, turning around to look Junsik in the eye. At that moment, it’s like their minds click again; a transient, invisible bridge forming between the windows to their souls. The edge of Junsik’s mouth pulls upwards - barely a fond half-smile.

He drifts forward, one soundless step, and presses a kiss on Jaewan’s lips, still dripping and cool with water.

“You could’ve told me,” the other boy says when Junsik leans away, shooting him a level stare as he takes his hand. “I would’ve stopped.”

“Nah, where’s the fun in that?” The engineering student shrugs, swaying their linked hands. “Besides, it’s funny while _they_ don’t know.”

He tilts his head towards the door, grinning, and Jaewan rolls his eyes.

“You think Jongin is going to make a move anytime soon, or will we have to intervene?” he splashes a last round of water on his face, before grabbing his toothbrush.

“Let’s give them some time,” Junsik sets his own bag beside Jaewan’s, before nabbing his facial foam, disappointed when the other boy doesn’t complain. “Uni’s dumb anyway - and time’s the only thing we have right now. We’ll be okay.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> (so this might be part of a uni au series with more lck pros? ;A; comments/ideas for potential instalments would be appreciated!! \o/ thank you friends and much hearts ;u;)


End file.
